Five Things #27 — Ralph Lauren Forever Stamps, Japanese Hickory Stripes, and the Return Levi's Cone Mills Denim
Ralph Lauren designs USPS Forever Stamps for America’s 250th, Goro Nakatsugawa reworks Dickies classics, Nepenthes & MOANDMO tackle Hickory Stripe in Okayama, and Levi’s revives the 1870 Nevada Jean.
American Icons Forever Stamps by Ralph Lauren
This is by far the coolest thing that I’ve seen in the last weeks, and it comes from one of the greatest American designers out there, Ralph Lauren, of all companies and the United States Postal Service. Together for America’s 250th anniversary coming in July, Ralph and USPS deliver the American Icon Stamps series: commemorative sheets featuring 13 stamp designs that pay respect to what makes America great always.
The collection of stamps, set to release on June 9th, features, on many, a background of blue denim that’s layered behind some classic American iconography, from a lighthouse to a sailboat. The Ralph Lauren Polo bear is also included with his favorite American flag sweater, as well as a standalone take of the American flag in what can only be called embroidered wool.
But maybe the most important stamp is the the Navajo blanket with its beautiful ash reds and browns. The last time we saw the Navajo blanket was on four 1986 commemorative 22-cent stamps that were part of the American Folk Heritage Collection that ran for almost two decades.
The 13 Ralph designs for American Icons feature flags, white horses, old Ford trucks, as well as baseball and a cheeseburger, which are wholly American-made like jazz music.
Give credit to Ralph Lauren for extending his design language beyond clothing and advertisements to include this new work.
As crazy it may seem, a Forever stamp is 78 cents today compared back to the ‘90s when they were 32 cents. Even then, imagine that for 78 cents you can send a letter from New York City to Alaska or Hawaii or Guam via first-class mail, and it’s likely to get there in under three days. Certainly, the Post Office has been in some disarray and short on money with a heavy deficit for years, but damn, I still believe in the Post Office.
Look for sheet of the 13 American Icons Stamps June 9th at every US post office and online. Definitely pick up a couple of sheets for your kids or your nieces and nephews.
Dickies Extended 874 by Toshiro Goro Nakatsugawa Collection
Toshiro “Goro” Nakatsugawa’s new series for Dickies Extended is the latest example of this American workwear’s line in Japan doing pretty cool things with classic silhouettes. Goro Nakatsugawa, best known for his MIN-NANO creative shop, continues to develop new mock-ups and, once again, taking on some of our favorite American classics. You’ve seen him do this with Vans, Converse, and others in the past, and now he’s touching Dickie’s in a way that shows that he actually knows how people live in their clothes.
The tweaks are subtle: prints, stitching, proportions, lengths, and certain colorways, like the floral splatter ensemble shown above, which feels very much right out of a late 60s-70s rayon shirt that you’d find on model of the moment Twiggy. But here modernized for 2026 cool kids, it works really well as a motif on 874 original silhouette.
It will be available online through Dickies Japan and at their flagship stores locally.
Nepenthes x MOANDMO Clothing Hickory Striped Suit and Cap
The ongoing collaboration between Nepenthes New York and MOANDMO Clothing continues to carve out its own niche that blends downtown New York energy with a passion for Japanese craftsmanship, transforming vintage references into something for today rather than merely reproducing them.
For the second installment, MOANDMO, the New York-based label known for reconstructing Americana, military wear, and workwear texpands the collection into three distinct stories but I’ll focus on the Hickory Striped series.
The Hickory Stripe series, including painter pants, shorts, skirts, totes, and jackets for both men and women, all produced in Okayama, Japan, a region synonymous with some of the best denim and workwear manufacturing in the world and a name that should be familiar to regulars of Selectism.
It’s not ordinary hickory as it looks a little wider; it’s got a little bit more space but still the hickory we all love.
All three Nepenthese x MOANDMO programs are available in-store today, Thursday May 21.
Levi’s Vintage Clothing 1870 Nevada Jeans
I missed the annual Levi’s 501 Day, by a day seeing as I don’t publish this newsletter on Wednesdays.1 For this year’s celebration, Levi’s clothing went deep into the back of their dead stock textiles locker, and were able to pull out some Cone Mills White Oak Selvedge Denim to build an homage to the 1870 Nevada Jeans.
The 1870s Nevada Jeans are considered one of the oldest pairs of known Levi’s denim jeans known to exist, with history that is really well tied to a find and a mine. It’s a period-accurate reproduction featuring the famous patented rivets of 1873 and the center back leather patch and cinch.2 This, of course, is a one-pocket model because why the hell would you want two pockets back in 1873?
Oddly enough, it’s just great to know that somehow Levi’s continues to just keep finding Cone Mills white oak denim that they must be hoarding. Surprisingly, these 1870s Nevada limited edition jeans are a US-only online release via Levi’s. They’ll set you back $595 a pair it’s pretty standard pricing for limited edition Cone Mills denim these days. I do wonder how much tariffs may play a role in the fact that they’re only available through the US online store
Just a few sizes remaining online so get them before they’re gone.
Trinity: An Illustrated History of the World’s First Atomic Test Book
IEEE Spectrum does a fantastic job of writing up the new book Trinity: An Illustrated History of the World’s First Atomic Test talks about the Trinity Test, also known as the first atomic test done in Los Alamos back in the 1940s, taken during the famous Manhattan Project detonation. IEEE also features a fantastic interview with author Emily Seyl. Here’s their take on what makes this book such an important photographic document:
A new book about the Trinity test, the world’s first atomic explosion, presents startlingly vivid views of the event. Based on a 20-year effort to restore and release hundreds of photographs taken during the Manhattan Project, the book, simply titled Trinity, is a treasure trove of some 350 of these images, along with maps, memos, diagrams, blueprints, and pictures of lab-notebook pages.
Authored by Emily Seyl, a writer and editor at Los Alamos National Laboratory’s National Security Research Center, the book begins with the early preparations for the test, in the spring of 1944. It continues to the present day, with brief descriptions of the test site, where ground zero is marked by a simple black obelisk. The University of Chicago Press, the book’s publisher, kindly granted permission to IEEE Spectrum to reprint chapter 6, which is titled “5:29 A.M.” The chapter begins seconds before ignition, in the bunker known as North 10,000, where head photographer Berlyn Brixner was standing in a turret alongside two Mitchell 35-mm movie cameras.
The 344-page Trinity book comes out Monday, May 25th it is a highly recommended document about a moment in time that really did change the world
Yes, one would assume that Levi’s 501 day would fall on May 1st, but we all know it falls on the 20th which I remind many is exact date in 1873 when Levi Strauss and tailor Jacob Davis received their U.S. patent for copper-riveted work pants. And so the story goes….
Call me crazy, but I’ve just never been a fan of the cinch. it would seem that a lot of people back then were neither, because many of the vintage pairs that are found are missing and have had those things cut off. Regardless…